A lot of my life choices have been reckless and spontaneous. As I get older and work toward my goals, the reckless behavior continues

A Generation of Petty

This generation (90’s babies and early 2000’s babies) is full of petty people.

Now before I provide my two cent, let’s define this word.

Petty (adj.)- of little importance; trivial.

The dictionary sentence provided: “the petty divisions of party politics”

My sentence:” The reason she left the house was petty.”

I feel like being petty is a sign of immaturity. Doing certain actions with the goal of getting a certain reaction. I am guilty of being petty I will admit. But as a young woman I want to do better. I want to have the maturity and the self control to refrain from pettiness.

Why am I petty? I am petty because it is rewarding. Posting on social media, saying something hurtful, or doing a vengeful action to someone just so you can control them and have them feeling some type of way for however long. Seeing the arousal of the emotion you targeted, as a result of the petty action, should not give us satisfaction. As adults we have to stop playing games. If you want attention, tell whoever that you want some attention. Refrain from doing things targeting certain people. It may be subtle, but sometimes it is obvious and when it is obvious all it does it make you look foolish.

I have heard some foolish things from a couple of the people in my life (sorry ya’ll);

EXAMPLE: Boyfriend cheats on his girlfriend. She finds out via text messages she finds when snooping through his phone.

Now there are a various ways to handle this situation.

The girlfriend could leave her cheating boyfriend

The girlfriend could leave her cheating boyfriend

The girlfriend could leave her cheating boyfriend

However, the girlfriend (this is a true story FYI) decided to react differently;

REACTION: The girlfriend (Let’s call her Gabriela for the purpose of this blog) decides to contact her boyfriend’s cousin, who he is currently on bad terms with.

I think you all already know what happened next, but I will proceed…

Gabriela and this cousin participate in a sexual relationship that continues for about a week. On the last day of the sexual relationship, Gabriela sends a video via snap chat to her boyfriend. I will not say what was in the snap, but a middle finger emoji was also added for emphasis. Actions like this…. just PETTY. If your reasoning for being petty is for revenge, just let karma and God have their way. Your petty actions will only make you look bad. Gabriela was a good wholesome girl who went out of her character just to be petty. Being petty won’t change what was done to you… fact. So let it go! As a young adult, your goal should be to leave the relationship, friendship, job or whatever the situation is, with all your dignity and respect.

I will provide another example that is non relationship related:

EXAMPLE: Your job writes you up for being late to work multiple times

Now you could accept that you got written up and focus on moving forward and being on time from now on or you could react how my friend did;

REACTION: My friend brought up two other employees she does not get along with who are always late as well. They had never got written up and they were written up as a result.

This action was PETTY. You are upset so you throw two people under the bus. Regardless of if you like someone or not, throwing them under the bus because you’re in trouble is uncalled for.

I have done petty things as well so I can not judge anyone and that is not my purpose of this blog. My purpose is a call for us to do better. We are not in high school anymore,we are adults. Our focus should be on our own personal growth and learning to control our emotions and not escalating unimportant situations. There are many examples of what it means to be petty, but instead of debating on which occasions are acceptable, let’s just end it all together and be the mature young adults we are capable of being.